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July 2010 Airline Traffic Data: System Traffic Up 0.4 Percent from July 2009

July 2010 Airline Traffic Data: System Traffic Up 0.4 Percent from July 2009

Friday, October 15, 2010 - The U.S.
Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today
reported in a release of preliminary data that U.S. airlines carried 68.4
million scheduled domestic and international passengers in July 2010. This
is a 0.4 percent increase from July 2009 (Table 1). The July 2010 passenger
total was 3.0 percent below that of two years ago in July 2008 (Table 2).

BTS, a part of DOT's Research and
Innovative Technology Administration, also reported that U.S. airlines carried 0.6
percent fewer domestic passengers in July 2010 than in July 2009. The
number of international passengers on U.S. carriers in July 2010 increased 7.5
percent over July 2009 (Tables 7, 13). The July 2010 load factors of 86.9
percent systemwide, 86.9 percent domestic and 86.7 percent international were
the highest recorded for any July (Tables 1, 7, 13).

Additional traffic numbers can be
found on the BTS website in the Airline
Industry box. Click on a link in the
column on the right. For more historic numbers, see Traffic on the BTS website.

For the
first seven months of 2010, the number of scheduled domestic and
international passengers on U.S. airlines increased 1.1 percent from the same
period in 2009 to 417.9 million (Table 2). The number of passengers declined 7.2
percent from the first seven months of 2008 to the first seven months of 2010.

U.S. airlines carried 0.5 percent
more domestic passengers and 4.9 percent more international passengers in the
first seven months of 2010 than during the same
period in 2009 (Tables 7, 13).

Top Airlines in July

In July, Delta Air Lines carried more total system and
international passengers than any other U.S. airline (Tables 4, 16). Southwest
Airlines carried the most domestic passengers (Table 10).

During the first seven months of
2010, Delta carried more total system and international passengers than any
other U.S. airline (Tables 3, 15). Southwest carried the most domestic
passengers (Table 9). See notes under airline ranking tables for more details
on Delta's report.

Top Airports in July

In July,
more total system and domestic passengers boarded planes at Atlanta
Hartsfield-Jackson International than at any other U.S. airport (Tables 6 and
12); and more international passengers boarded U.S. carriers at New York JFK
than at any other U.S. airport (Table 18).

During the first seven months of
2010, more total system and domestic passengers boarded planes at Atlanta
Hartsfield-Jackson International than at any other U.S. airport (Tables 5 and
11); and more international passengers boarded U.S. carriers at Miami
International than at any other U.S. airport (Table 17).

Flights Operated

In July, U.S. airlines operated 850,500
scheduled domestic and international flights, down 1.9 percent from the number
of flights operated in July 2009 (Table 1). The number of domestic flights
decreased 2.5 percent in July from a year earlier while international flights
were up 4.9 percent (Tables 7, 13).

During the first seven months of
2010, U.S. carriers operated 5.5 million domestic and international flights, 1.8
percent fewer than were operated during the same period in 2009 (Table 1). Domestic flights decreased 2.1 percent from
the previous year while international flights were up 1.8 percent (Tables 7,
13).

For other
comparisons from the first seven months of 2009 to the first seven months of
2010 and from July 2009 to July 2010, see the following tables:

Airport Rankings

Scheduled
International Air Travel on
U.S.
Airlines (Tables 13-18)

Table 13 (July
and January through July):
International revenue passenger-miles on
U.S.
airlines (RPMs)
International available seat-miles on
U.S.
airlines (ASMs)
International passenger load factor on
U.S.
airlines
International flight stage length on
U.S.
airlines
International passenger trip length on
U.S.
airlines

Table 14
International scheduled enplanements on U.S. airlines by
month since January 2008

Airline Rankings

Table 15
January through July: Top 10 U.S. airlines by scheduled
international passenger enplanements

Table 16
July: Top 10 U.S. airlines by scheduled international
passenger enplanements

Airport Rankings

Table 17
January through July: Top 10 airports by scheduled
international passenger enplanements on U.S. airlines

Table 18
July: Top 10 airports by scheduled international passenger
enplanements on U.S. airlines

Reporting Notes

Data
are compiled from monthly reports filed with BTS by commercial
U.S.
air carriers detailing operations, passenger traffic and freight traffic. This
release includes data received by BTS from 79 carriers as of Oct. 5 for U.S.
carrier scheduled civilian operations. Go to http://www.transtats.bts.gov/releaseinfo.asp for the complete list of reporting and non-reporting carriers.
U.S.
carriers ' foreign point-to-point
flights are included in system and
international totals. To create a customized table for passengers, flights,
RPMs, ASMs and other data, including non-scheduled service, go to http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/air_carrier_traffic_statistics/.

Traffic numbers are available on
the BTS website at TranStats, the Intermodal Transportation Database, at http://transtats.bts.gov. Click on "Aviation." For system passengers, RPMs and ASMs by
carrier through July, click on "Air Carrier Summary Data (Form 41 and 298C
Summary Data)," and then click on "Schedule T-1." Use crosstabs to find
scheduled service.

For domestic numbers through July
and international numbers through April by origin as well as by carrier, after
clicking on "Aviation," click on "Air Carrier Statistics (Form 41
Traffic)." Click on "T-100 Market" for
system passenger numbers, "T-100 Domestic Market" for domestic or "T-100
International Market" for international. For flights, stage length and trip length, use the appropriate T-100
Segment database. Use crosstabs to find scheduled service.

TranStats system and international
totals do not include U.S. carriers'
foreign point-to-point flights. For July, U.S. carriers
reported 239,300 foreign point-to-point passengers. For January through July, U.S. carriers reported 1,628,480 foreign point-to-point
passengers.

Data are subject to revision. BTS has scheduled Nov. 12 for the release of August
traffic data.

Table 1: Scheduled System (Domestic and International)
Airline Travel on U.S. Airlines

** Delta's January-July 2010
number is the report of the merged Delta and Northwest. The January-July 2009 numbers were reported
separately by Delta and Northwest. Northwest reported 24.890 million system
passengers in January-July 2009.

** Delta's
July 2010 number is the report of the merged Delta and Northwest. The July 2009 numbers were reported
separately by Delta and Northwest. Northwest reported 4.241 million system
passengers in July 2009.

* Delta's
January-July 2010 number is the report of the merged Delta and Northwest. The January-July 2009 numbers were reported
separately by Delta and Northwest. Northwest reported 19.768 million domestic
passengers in January-July 2009.

* Delta's
July 2010 number is the report of the merged Delta and Northwest. The July 2009 numbers were reported
separately by Delta and Northwest. Northwest reported 3.459 million domestic
passengers in July 2009.

* Delta's
January-July 2010 number is the report of the merged Delta and Northwest. The January-July 2009 numbers were reported
separately by Delta and Northwest. Northwest reported 5121.8 thousand
international passengers in January-July 2009.

* Delta's
July 2010 number is the report of the merged Delta and Northwest. The July 2009 numbers were reported
separately by Delta and Northwest. Northwest reported 781.5 thousand
international passengers in July 2009.